Meron Goes to the Dentist

When we went home a few months back, a wise friend gave us some great advice. When we told him we weren’t sure how much good we were doing, that it was hard to see the fruits of our labor, he told us not to think that way. “Don’t keep asking yourself, ‘Are we making a difference?’ We can only do what we’re supposed to do, and God takes it from there. Even if you’re just doing a little, you’re doing your part, and we have no idea what God will do once you leave. But he’ll certainly continue the work you started.”

We know he’s speaking the truth. If we think along these lines, as he suggested, we’ll be more likely to remain sane, positive, realistic, honest, and humble.

I also found truth in Laura’s words to Joe, when we discussed one evening how discouraging it can be to not have much work to do at site—to have community members simply not interested in the help you want to provide. “No, no, no.” Laura said to her fiancé. “I expect you to be performing arm surgery by the time you get back! If I’m giving you up for two years, you’re going to perform miracles!” This is how many of us feel. If we’re postponing baby plans, house plans, careers (or simply getting a real paycheck), and missing out on major family events, we want to do something while we’re here. Something big.

While we find value in all our projects—and there are quite a few—there’s nothing like seeing actual good that one individual can do for another. Yes, Adwa needs English. And I know English. But we’re residents of Africa for two years. Can’t we give something other than English? Something more?

And we’ve found that thing—that “arm surgery miracle-performing” thing. In 2024, when we’re remembering our Peace Corps service and sharing it with our children, I’m sure we’ll mention our English clubs, classes, and reading programs. But we’re guessing that forefront in our minds will be our neighbors, their income, their health, and the knowledge that This was a difference we made.

* * *

A few weeks before leaving for America we were having coffee with the Girimkils. Misilal raised Meron’s upper lip for us, showed us the root of her front tooth plowing right up through her gums and touching the underside of her lip. Afraid that Meron’s tooth would continue to move that direction, Misilal put both her index fingers on her little girl’s tooth and pushed down as hard as she could. Nigoho, nigoho, she said. Every morning. Every morning, Mom pushes on Daughter’s tooth to keep it from moving upwards. We told her it had to be removed. She told us they don’t have the money. Daniel and I exchanged glances, nodded, and said we’d pay for it.

(This was the point where we ran in the house to grab some toothbrushes and toothpaste that a few of our sister-in-law Lindsay’s students sent, in a gracious box full of goodies for students.) We had a toothbrushing training right there in our yard. I brushed for them, repeating, “Komzi,” (like this), through my foam. Teeth-cleaning here is traditionally done with a pointy, green stick; they sell them on buses.

Dental appointment number one was a few days later. Misilal, Luam, Meron, Daniel, and I all piled into a single bajaj on each other’s laps and went to the hospital. We were told nothing could be done that day because Meron had to apply a disinfectant on the protruding tooth for one week. We’d be gone in six days, on our way to America, so we gave Misilal the money in advance, for the taxi, for the hospital bills, etc. The dentist—a loud, obnoxious, young man—also told us Meron would have to get all her teeth pulled, one at a time. They’re all rotten, black, and cavity-strewn, but since they’re her baby teeth, we thought they’d fall out naturally. He said they were so much decayed that they wouldn’t fall out on their own.

So, dental appointment number two we didn’t see. But we came back to a happy Meron, who still seemed to like us, and no protruding tooth. Misilal gave us the receipts, but no change. She swore up and down that the charges required the full amount we gave her, but there was a 60 birr discrepancy. New lesson: If we don’t want to get cheated in the middle of our generosity (they don’t truly realize it’s generous; they still think we’re rich), we have to take her to the dentist ourselves. No stand-ins.

Dental appointment number three was to kick-start the “removing all of Meron’s decayed teeth” program. The dentist didn’t seem to know whether or not he could give a five-year-old the same Anesthesia he gives adults. It was a mirror image of my time on a bus in Uganda some years ago, when a family of elephants was blocking our way in the road. The bus driver turned to me (because I was seated up front, and he assumed I was in charge of the 40 of us) and asked, “Is it safe?” He was asking the American if he could drive forward toward the elephants. After 10 minutes of hurried discussion, we decided no (with a small margin), and later learned from a laughing policeman, “They would’ve KILLED you!” (Note, Mama elephant was flapping her ears at us, which was the deciding factor, given one of the gal’s experience with Animal Planet.) So, fast-forward to today, and the dentist is asking me, “Is it safe?” while I’m fuming on the inside You’re the dentist! We ask him, “Well, what did you do last time?”, indicating dental appointment number two. He stares blankly.

            Later, we’re in line for one of the several unknown things we have to stand in line and pay for, and I’m praying. God, if he's going to harm her, please provide another way. I have no clue. Obviously neither does he. Take care of this. I look down at Meron, playing, seemingly unaware of her fate. We weren’t at the first appointment, so we don’t know if Anesthesia was involved. I kneel down to Meron. “Mis kali sinni, kidmi hanti warhi, himam neyru doe?” (“With your other tooth, one month ago, was there pain?” is the closest I can come to a direct question.) She shakes her head, smiling.

            The dentist decides to give the Anesthesia, and gives us a form to take to the hospital pharmacy to buy two syringes for said cause, and latex gloves. We bring them to the dentist. He puts her tiny body in the huge chair. His assistant pulls out a box of metal, scary-looking things. He’s putting on the gloves and walking towards her, but the syringes I just bought him are on the other side of the room. It’s happening way too fast. Nervously and suddenly, one of my favorite, most looked-forward-to things—going to the dentist—is becoming something horrifying. And I’m not even the one in the chair. Daniel leaves the room for fear of squirmishness. I’m alone in the room with them, deciding what to do, fast. I inch towards them—do I remind him about the Anesthesia? Do I interrupt?—I watch, hand on mouth. Meron is wiggling her tiny hands around, eyeing all around her. Looking nervous, but composed. It happens in five seconds. He puts the pliers to her mouth and I’m nearly about to scream out at him, and he starts to pull. She screams. She’s wailing, he’s tossing a tiny something into the large garbage can beside her. He puts gauze to her bleeding hole, and Wadina. We’re finished. Nearly in tears myself, I’m picking her up and soothing her.

            “What happened? Why didn't you numb her?” He says he decided last minute not to give her the adult Anesthesia. As these words leave his mouth, I’m not incensed. I’m relieved and grateful and know where it came from, his last-minute decision. He had decided on the syringes—he made me go spend 20 birr on them. I bring them back, and he ignores them without explanation. Yes, it was last minute. Something entered his mind at the last possible moment, and he took a different route. So as he told me he changed his mind, I breathed thanks to God for answering my If he’s going to harm her, provide another way prayer.

            Meron cried for two minutes. She still wanted to be held for awhile, but she was quiet and strong. We called her anbasa (lion) for the rest of the day.

Dental appointment number four was a direct contradiction to number one. We told the loud dentist that we had come to get another tooth removed. He asked why, loudly. We said you told us to. He said these were her baby teeth, and by the time she is seven, they would fall out. So why remove them? Because you told us to. Three months ago you said they were so decayed, they wouldn’t fall out naturally. They had to be pulled. He stared blankly. No. She needs fillings.

Dental appointment number five is at a real dentist’s office. Not a hospital with a general dentist on staff. He peruses her cavities, and charges 600 birr for 6 fillings. To us, to Ethiopians, this is a lot of money. Six hundred birr lasts us a long time. It’s a fifth of our monthly stipend; this same amount would pay Girimkil’s salary for a month and a half. But in dollars? Thirty-one dollars for 6 fillings.

            Misilal sits in the dentist chair this time, and Meron lies on top of her. Misilal grips tightly for the entire hour, crying at intervals for her daughter, in this single painless dental appointment for Meron. There’s a loud soap opera going on behind me as the assistant mixes powder with drops, making a paste, and the dentist scoops it up with a stick, then applies it to each tooth. It reminds me of a thick frosting, particularly the praline I put between the layers of my carrot cake (without the pecans). Now, neither Daniel nor I have had any cavities, so we don’t know how this works. We don’t know what it should look like. But it’s surprising to me that this is what fillings are made of. Paste of some kind.

            He tells me in English that she can’t eat or drink for five hours. I tell him, Don’t tell me, tell her mother in Tigrigna. This has become my most-repeated statement at each dental appointment—even when Loud Dentist told me what the cause was: either breast-feeding in the middle of the night, or breast-feeding for too many years (it was confusing). Still his instinct wasn’t to tell the obvious breast-feeder who could tell her breast-feeding friends and get the word around—he told the ferengi for her own edification. “Tell her. In Tigrigna,” we repeated. Everyone wants to show off their English.

            Filling-dentist assures us that these should last until she is seven, and then her teeth will fall out naturally.

            According to Girimkil, the whole family “guards” Meron that day, keeping her away from food and drink. I look at her mouth the next day, and the fillings, though sloppy and not in the shape of teeth, are there. A much prettier sight than gaping black holes.

           

* * *

            The story would’ve ended beautifully there. I would’ve made the essay go full circle, and underline our wise friend’s advice. This would’ve been the thing we did to help Meron and that we would look back on, knowing we were of use and made a difference. But that would’ve been too easy.

            Two months pass. We’re back from Germany. I’m sitting with Meron on our doorstep, and I give her a banana. Watching her chew makes me think to look at her teeth. She opens her mouth for me. All signs of the 600-birr fillings are gone. Gaping black holes have made a comeback.

            I go to the dentist. I give the same speech, separately, to his assistant in Tigrigna and then to him in English, when I pass him on the stairs. Note, last time I complained to a business in the states—a certain university records office—I was so nervous and “hurt” as a consumer, that I cried through the entire conversation. But when incompetence is expected and you feel you’re surrounded by it—it becomes a lot easier to yell at people who do their jobs terribly:

            Six hundred birr! We are volunteers without salaries, and that is a lot of money; we’re not rich ferengi! You said it would last until she was seven, and it lasted TWO MONTHS. Why? Is your medicine expired? I am telling everyone in Adwa what happened, and that this is a bad place, and not to come here. This is not good business.

            He said to bring her back and we would “discuss.” But we know how this works. Product quality—apparently even fillings—is low here. We buy a brand new dog collar and it’s broken next day. Twice. Our non-stick pan from Addis became our stick-pan after a few months. Brand new pens here are a one-time use deal. Sometimes, our lightbulbs last us one day. And the list goes on. (What this place needs is 3,000 of my dads spread throughout the country. Craftsmen, handymen with know-how and integrity.)

            So we won’t take her back there. We won’t bring the Girimkil family to the other side of town to argue with this dentist, and eventually agree to get the same two-month fillings at a discounted price. We can’t, we won’t.

            So the good we thought we were doing wasn’t as profound as we would’ve liked. One dangerous and protruding tooth was removed, and one cavity. She got fake fillings for two months. But she’s five, she says they don’t hurt, and when she’s seven, they should fall out.

            We did what we could, and that has to be enough. When Misilal lifted Meron’s lip to show us her impaled gums that day, we didn’t stop at “Ajokum, Igzyaber yihabkum”—Be strong, may God give to you. We had her at the dentist the next week.

            If we had to put our fingers on why we think we’re here, a good reason God directed us away from new nephews and toward strangers in the other half of the world, we’d both say it was this family. Girimkil went blind seven months before we arrived. He couldn’t work anymore; he used to be a guard and the goat-slaughterer for the community—each goat, 20 minutes, he says. He tells us often how it was before we came. He says he was sick in his mind and in his heart. He wasn’t happy or at peace; he couldn’t provide for his family’s needs. The first time this blind man asked, or rather told us, that he would be our guard, we didn’t realize that this would be our one great contribution to Adwa, that we’d be so thankful we said yes. He thanks us, and he thanks God, that his heart and mind are now happy, free of worry. He recently told us that he doesn’t know what will come after us—we leave in eight months, and what he’ll do next, Igzyaber yifalit. God knows (according to His will). What Girimkil doesn’t know, is that we’re comforting ourselves with this same thought. We don’t know in what form or increment we’ll be helping them after we leave. But we know that they are what we were here for, and God will pick up where we left off, when we leave. We know this much about our Father—this is what He does; He follows through.

            Meron will remember her five dentist appointments, strutting down the cobblestone road and entering the taxi like a queen. Part of her bravery each appointment seemed to be her pride: she was a big girl, going to the hospital. How many kids get excited to get a tooth pulled, when they had one pulled weeks before? After her second tooth was pulled, she danced around her house, giggling and taunting her brothers in Tigrigna. Girimkil explained she was trying to make them jealous, she was “rubbing it in.” She got to ride a taxi, and they didn’t. She got to go to the hospital, they didn’t. (I was thinking, You have decayed teeth, they don’t.)

            She will remember she was important, that Daniel and Danayit loved her. And the family will remember the importance we placed on dental hygiene. We at least did what we were supposed to do. And we at least felt like real Peace Corps volunteers while we were doing it.

Send Us Some Love: Care Package Requests

We’re not saying we can’t survive out here. And we’re not even asking for care packages. We know that married volunteers will get a heck of a lot less packages than the single ones: we have each other, so, who needs cookies? But in case you just had a hankering to send a package our way anyway, we thought we’d cut out the middleman (us) and just make public the sorts of things we miss, and love to receive.

-Good Earth sweet and spicy cinnamon tea (sold at Wal-Mart); remove the tea bags from their boxed packaging, and all you need is an envelope

-Pepperoni

-Tuna packets, not cans (sold at Aldi); cheaper shipping this way!

-Flavored liquid coffee-creamers, wrapped in bubble wrap

-Hot chocolate packets (we have limited cocoa powder, so from-scratch isn’t an option)

-Parmesan cheese

-Any sort of chocolate is always welcomed with open arms and mouths

-Any slender sort of beginner’s clarinet book, preferably jazz

-A dog collar for our dear Butche; we keep putting money into collars and chains, in an attempt to give her more than three feet of leeway from her tree. We beat our standing how-long-til-Ethiopian-made-products-break record two months ago, when her spankin’-new collar from market broke in less than 20 hours, and the neighbors were back to wrapping metal around her neck.

And, drum roll, please…

We haven’t had home-baked cookies from scratch since May 2012. It’s the one thing our makeshift baking apparatus isn’t capable of. Why didn’t we make sure we crossed this off the list on our trip home this summer? We have no idea. We were just so busy eating other things—everything—that we forgot to bake some cookies.

Our sitemate’s saint of a mother has proved for us it’s possible. She often sends Lauren boxes of home-baked cookies, which she vacuum seals. We’ve seen it: they stay fresh and lovely this way.

So, the big ticket item:

-Home-baked cookies, vacuum-sealed

If only the more missed items were easy to send, like eggnog or Easy Bake Ovens or, say—you!

As a reminder, this is our address:

The Luttrulls

P.O. Box 227

Adwa, Ethiopia

We Luttrulls may soon be releasing a rationing handbook: Tips on Self-Control so Your Happiness Goes Further. We’re infamous, and alone, in these parts for making candy bars or Oatmeal Crème Pies last three to five months, when they last other volunteers two days. Be proud of your Midwest hoarders, who’d undoubtedly have the best-stocked bomb shelter pantry. But it’s been six months; we don’t want to have to steal from Lauren. Pretty please.

We thank you in advance.

In Deutschland

Intro: A Lesson in Genealogy

            I think we all have memories that we aren’t sure happened or not, where the line between dream and reality is a bit fuzzed. This isn’t one of those.

            But it’s one I rarely and barely remember, and when I do remember, my instinct is to assume it’s one of the dream-memories, because it seems out of character, being too brash a type of bravery for someone too shy. The time frame is blurry, but during one of my college summers, I felt God tugging me toward nursing homes, asking me to spend time with people. I recall looking nursing homes up at random in phone books, voice shaking when I called to ask for hours, hands jittery while searching MapQuest. Do I really have to? was a lingering thought that I didn’t dare acknowledge and kept stifling. But it felt awkward and inconvenient nonetheless. But why not? proved the louder of the lingering questions, and eventually you just get in your car and drive.

            I showed up to a few nursing homes that summer, asked the ladies at the front desks which patients hadn’t seen visitors in awhile, and sort of meandered into their rooms, alone and, again, awkward. My clearest memory is sitting at the bedside of an old woman, watching golf. We watched golf together, mostly silently, for at least an hour. Let the record show that there is no other circumstance in which I would willingly watch golf on TV. (Unless you paid me. Contact me if this is an option.)

            This was one of those things I wanted to keep quiet, not out of embarrassment, but out of my, perhaps superstitious, theory about Treasures-in-Heaven. Part of me still clings to the possibility that if I do good works, or give to the poor, and someone learns that I’m doing it, it’s not really a good work anymore (see Matt. 6:2-4).

            But somehow, for some reason, my mom found out. Maybe it was the classic So, what’d you do today? and I don’t know how to lie to my parents. But once I told her, she didn't seem impressed. That’s really sweet, hon, but—you’re visiting strangers in nursing homes when your own great grandma is at a nursing home. Why not go see her?

            It hadn’t occurred to me. That “golf-outing” with a stranger was my last. It was my great grandma’s room I visited instead.

            I remember hovering over her shoulder as she sat in her quaint room, in her wheelchair.  She wasn’t exactly talking anymore. Maybe at 103 you’ve said quite a lot already, and the quiet becomes a necessary calm. Maybe at 103 you’re plumb tuckered out. She silently reached for a black and white photograph while I reminded her I was Sue’s daughter, Gene’s granddaughter, in case she forgot. The woman had enough grandchildren and great grandchildren.

            This was the first time I’d ever seen the family photo. Amalia with all her many brothers and sisters, parents and heirlooms, posed and statuesque in black and white. It seems to have been taken in their front yard. It’s a work of art, now packed in one of our household boxes, waiting for the perfect frame so it can hang in our future homes. Soundlessly her finger moved slowly over each family member, and we watched together, the still faces. Her index finger hovered over a healthy-looking girl of about fifteen in a simple dress. Then she pointed to her own chest. Memory is deceiving; I can’t remember if she was crying. But I was. Looking at this young girl in Germany, I was understanding for the first time that my whole life, everything and everyone I loved so much: Grandpa hence Grandma, Mom hence Dad hence my siblings, aunts and uncles and cousins, continuing through the entire Distler line, came from this one teenage girl. And would continue to move forward. She came alone to Buffalo, New York, America, carrying her future bloodline with her, leaving all people and things familiar behind.

            This same old woman who creamed us in Rummy every week, as we sat in her red upholstered booths, child-sized bellies full of spaghetti or spaetzles. She was a young girl once, without all of us. And because of her and her husband Hans—poof. There we all were, this sea of Distlers so necessary to my person. I learned, and felt, genealogy and its mysterious beauty for the first time that day, alone with Grandma in her assisted living room. How brilliant and kind of the Lord to populate and manage the earth in this way—through family, through marriage, through love.

            As my husband admits to me that he doesn’t quite understand it—this seeking after my roots, traveling so far to scan over tombstones, looking for names like Freida and Krug; walking aimlessly down unfamiliar streets so I can think She walked here once; tracing landmarks to find where the family business, her childhood home, used to stand—he still let me do this, and joined me, gladly. He didn’t mind my distracted fascination my first time in New York City, on our honeymoon, when I wanted to go through the papers at Ellis Island to find Amalia Krug, the ship she was on, the names of the passengers before and behind her in line, the distant signature of the customs official who first greeted her.

            And I’m dumbfounded that it isn’t obvious: why wouldn’t you? If you knew where your family came from, why wouldn’t you go to that place, if you could? Why wouldn’t your very first day in Europe be spent in the place you stem from? I can only compare it to so many Christians’ desire, like my own, to see the Holy Land. Sure, it’s not the same anymore—landmarks haven’t been preserved. And yet you can know in Galilee or Nazareth that the path under your feet was once beneath Christ’s feet too. And that closeness, whether to your God or to your family—essentially, to your own soul—is what is so surreal and necessary for me.

            If that girl with the healthy cheeks, standing there resembling my mom’s dad, but decades earlier, hadn’t bravely come alone to America, where she met her German husband, or had she not been born, I wouldn’t be alive. Neither would Don or Christine or Michael or Jenny, etc. etc. And we’re just the family of one of her boys!

            Thanks be to God, maker of Heaven and Earth, who goes before us and behind us, hemming us in.

*     *     *     *

 

            Visiting Germany put another tick on the board Why Peace Corps Was a Great Choice for the Luttrulls. As we chalk the tick, our hands are a bit shaky and hesitant: That wasn’t a dream? We really did that?

            Our first stop, Tauberbischofsheim, was certainly dreamlike. Even the train ride in was full of wonder—this is when I first realized travel abroad should include more than just Africa. Having only seen impoverished lands outside of America (well, I’m not including Canada), it never occurred to me that there could be countries more beautiful than my own. This train ride, complete with castles and no two houses looking the same (come on, America; step up your game, your roofs, your construction), made me jealous of Germans. They are blessed with a gorgeous land that they’ve been great stewards of. As an American I’ve often wished I could have seen America in her early glory. I got teary-eyed both times I watched Pocahontas; imagine Autumn without industrialization, without drab housing developments. But Germany seems a place that has only become more beautiful with age. Building homes on her land hasn’t taken from her beauty, but somehow added to it. This country has no shortage of breathtaking architecture. (Maybe I’m biased; my number one house choice is German tudor style.)

            Tauberbischofsheim gave us a glimpse of smalltown Germany—the German countryside. The highlight of our first day was finding the graves of my great grandma’s parents, sister, and brother-in-law. This was as special as I imagined it would be. That night we sought out the German meals that have lined my family’s table for years: spaetzles, sauerkraut, bratwurst. Even cucumber salad. While the sauerkraut was heavenly (very atypical of sauerkraut), it is confirmed that my mom’s, my grandma’s, my sister’s, my own spaetzles are far better than Germany’s. Even if we do pronounce them “spechlies,” with Cleveland flair.

            The highlight of our second day was every moment. Aside from our wedding day and those of our siblings, I can’t remember thoroughly enjoying an entire day more than this one. Our self-designated “Bed and Bike” hotel—Germans love cycling—offered us complimentary bicycles. After an apple-jelly donut breakfast, a habit that would become a norm for our stay, we began riding. We rode to neighboring villages Hochhausen, Werbach, and Werbachausen. We got a taste of the Tauber Valley, which runs along the long and beautiful Tauber river, through the train windows. But on this day we got a fuller helping, via handlebars and pedals. I’d like to write a letter to the man or woman who designed this bicycle path, running the length of the valley. It wound through backyards and kitchen gardens, along forests where steeples jump out at you, unexpected. I couldn’t help but cry out various times on the bike ride; my adrenaline was higher than on both of my airplane jumps. Everything was perfect and seemed otherworldly, too beautiful to be actual: We were inside an old, black and white film; we were inside a block of dollhouses; we were inside Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; we were inside my own family’s neighborhood. 

            Some of my favorite bicycling scenery were the old German men who rode past us. I’d double-take and stare, thinking I was looking at my own grandfather. Turns out, many aging German men share the same full, ruddy, jolly cheeks as my grandpa and his brother. I kept seeing the “German version of so-and-so,” then considered so-and-so’s family name and thought, Hmmm. Probably German. Staas. Becker.

            Werbach was a quaint ghost-town of sorts, its only stirring being the church bells. We entered a bakery to buy a loaf of fresh bread and block of cheese, to take to the park for lunch. The memory of passing this loaf, too hard to tear, back and forth between us, ripping off chunks with our teeth and glorying in the more-than-one-bread-option is something I’ll keep with me. Give these two a bread stand, and we’ll be happy; if you can guess, we spent little on food those ten days. It was so easy and inexpensive to keep us in the simple joys of culinary heaven.

            Later that day we walked another bike path to another town, Impfingen. And after that, we recovered from our cheese-heavy lunch (wait; it was a bad idea to share an entire block?) in one of Tauberbischofsheim’s parks, enjoying Autumn as Daniel read a mystery novel to me, and I “caught leaves,” a favorite fall pastime I thought I’d have to wait until 2014 for. This surprise of being given Autumn when we thought we were fasting on Autumn-lent, was lovely. I felt I couldn’t complain about the chapped lips—bring ‘em on, and let us see pumpkins.

            Berlin, too, was lovely. Similar to D.C., which I feel is “big-city history,” Chicago but with monuments and chilling stories—every day in Berlin was a history lesson. An interesting one (partly because I married a great story-teller and wealth of information). The Brandenburg Gate; Checkpoint Charlie; what remains of the Berlin Wall (and now has murals); the abandoned airport-now-park-for-parasailing of what was West Germany; Potsdam, important at both the start and end of WWII; the fascinating Pergamon Museum; Sunday service in the Berlin Dom, a gorgeous Protestant cathedral I assumed to be Catholic only because it seemed too majestic, ornate, and beautiful to be otherwise. (The unexpected surprise of partaking in Communion again, before 2014, was similar to the glimpse of Autumn.) Though Dr. Pong, the ping-pong tournament bar we visited, wasn’t exactly historical, I did feel like I was inside a smoky indy German film, and loved it. We watched karaoke on a hill in one of Berlin’s parks. We went to Oktoberfest, ate pretzels, listened to polka, considered what “traditional American dress” would look like if it existed, and simply enjoyed. 

            We spent our last day in the Berlin area in Oranienburg, where we visited Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. This was overwhelming and sobering in its realness. I think we both expected a museum, not a left-as-was expansive reality of location. We stepped through the gate inscribed with Arbeit Macht Frei, Work liberates, and into something like the set of The Great Escape. Tall, barbed stone walls surrounding a fortress of land; watchtowers that seem all too recently used; remains of crematoriums; too many gates, too many places to imagine a starting point, an entryway, of terror.

            The most shaking and terrifying part for me, was seeing it all beneath a gorgeously blue sky with clouds you’d call perfect, beautiful pines and other natural greats standing rooted behind the ugly walls. It was horrifying to see it all in color. I too often forget that history wasn’t in black and white, wasn’t too long ago, wasn’t all that different from what we were seeing, smelling, thinking on that same plot of land seventy years later, two weeks ago. The prisoners, the dead—they saw and felt unsettlingly-divine days like those too: those sorts of clouds, that gorgeous sky, the lovely trees and changing leaves. They still saw evidence of what was normal and good and peaceful, but could have no part in it. If they tried standing close enough to the walls to smell those trees, or watch the sun from a particular angle under the brush, they’d be shot for crossing the line. Hate is an absurd thing, and too difficult to see and know in color. It affected me in a way I didn’t expect: I expected a museum, and what I got was realness, evidence, everydayness.

            Josh was a magnificent host, with a lovely home he and his housemates welcomed us into, and a fantastic know-how for navigating Berlin’s public transportation. We had a great time with him. I think Daniel will cherish their late-night football viewings and recollections of college as some of the best parts of the trip.

            Frankfurt was a pretty place. A serene end to a busy trip, as we saw most of what it had to offer in a short morning and afternoon. The Kaiserdom, where German emperors used to be crowned, was fascinating, pretty, and old—one of the only buildings in its neighborhood to mostly escape the blasts of war. Their statue of Mary had me thinking of the mother of God differently, as she looked like all the photos I’ve seen of my own mother in her late 20s. I guess it’s to Germany I have to go to find my family’s likenesses. Goethe’s house was also neat to see.

            It was healthy and fulfilling and inspiring to be again surrounded by architectural and religious beauty. To see bridges again; statues again; gables again; churches again (we’ve yet to physically enter an Ethiopian church); clean bodies of water again, without thinking of scary medical terms like Schistosomiasis. To be surrounded by a different sort of culture, one more like our own, whose sense of beauty matches our own.

            Growing up, I remember my mom’s measure of a good vacation being that we were ready to return home again. The vacation, the rest, had done its job. Our last night in Frankfurt featured no sort of dreading: we were ready, we were excited, to go back. By day two of our trip, I confess I was hankering for some Ethiopian food. We still had our bags on us when we beelined from the cramped bus (21 people in a 12-passenger) to a restaurant where we could eat special ful, and eat it immediately. I recall last June, being so sad for Ethiopians—They don’t know about tacos or burgers or barbecued ribs or lasagna or pizza or any other creative way to cook chicken outside of their single chicken dish—and today I’m sad for my pre-Ethiopia self, who had to wait 25 years for a decent pot of doro watt. Grilled chicken doesn’t know what it’s missing. I tell you, my idea of comfort food has shifted in the past year, and come late 2014, we’ll be in trouble once we’re not surrounded by it.

            In short, the vacation passed my mother’s test, and was, in every way, perfect. It’s almost tempting to plan every vacation in a single week.